The invention relates generally to quiz games and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for playing a quiz game that substantially eliminate the age-based inequities present in such games.
Quiz games are a well-known form of family entertainment. Many such quiz games exist, and common games include: xe2x80x9cTRIVIAL PURSUIT,xe2x80x9d xe2x80x9cWHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE,xe2x80x9d xe2x80x9cJEOPARDY,xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cOUTBURST.xe2x80x9d However, most quiz games, although generally intended for players in a broad age range, do not provide a so-called xe2x80x9clevel playing fieldxe2x80x9d for all players due to the lack of education and experience of younger players and the failure of some older players to keep current on styles and events. In most quiz games, a category is selected completely by chance from the perspective of the player whose turn it is (e.g., through the player""s roll of a die or dice, or through selection of the category by someone other than the player). For example, in xe2x80x9cTRIVIAL PURSUIT,xe2x80x9d the question category is selected by the player""s roll of a die; whereas, in xe2x80x9cJEOPARDYxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cWHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE,xe2x80x9d the question categories for each round are selected by a non-player (at least in the television game show). Thus, prior art quiz games do not provide a mechanism to allow the player whose turn it is to attempt to answer a question he or she has a reasonably good chance of answering correctly. Many games attempt to xe2x80x9clevel the playing fieldxe2x80x9d by including a wide variety of question categories in an effort to increase the likelihood that the question category selected by chance will contain a question that the player has a reasonably good chance to answer. However, as many a player can attest, such an attempt is often not successful.
One type of prior art quiz game is an audio quiz game in which a player must answer one or more questions related to an audio clip played from an audio playing device. Such an audio quiz game is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,106,097 (the ""097 patent). This quiz game uses a compact disk (CD) player to play an audio clip relating to a category of questions and answers selected completely by chance. Each track of a CD contains one or more audio clips separated by audio queues. The questions and answers relating to the CD tracks are provided in a book or on playing cards or in computer memory, and can be randomly accessed.
In accordance with the ""097 patent, a player spins a spinner to select a CD track and, therefore, the category of the audio clip be played. Once the CD track has been selected, an opposing player finds the page of the book corresponding to the selected CD track and identifies the question category associated with the selected CD track. The opposing player or a dedicated CD jockey locates the CD with the selected track, inserts the CD into the CD player, and advances the CD to the selected track. The player whose turn it is then selects a difficulty level (e.g., from 1-5) for the question to be answered, and the opposing player reads a question from the question and answer book which is in the selected category and has the appropriate level of difficulty. After the question is read, the audio clip is played and the player attempts to answer the question based on the content of the audio clip. If the question is answered correctly, the player may move his or her game piece a number of spaces on the game board that is equivalent to the difficulty level of the question. For example, if the player answered a question correctly having a difficulty level of three, the player may move his or her game piece three spaces on the game board.
As evident from the foregoing, the audio quiz game disclosed in the ""097 patent suffers from the same ailment as all other quiz games: the category of the question(s) to be answered is selected completely by chance, thereby creating an inequality among players of varying ages. In addition, the audio quiz game disclosed in the ""097 patent requires a person (a player or a dedicated CD jockey) to locate the CD with the selected track and queue the appropriate audio clip for play, thereby causing undesirable delays in the flow of the game. The ""097 patent does suggest the use of a fixed index for each audio clip and the use of indexing features of a CD player to enable a desired audio clip index to be input into a keyboard of the CD player to facilitate immediate access to the desired audio clip. However, the suggested fixed indexing approach requires the index number for a desired audio clip to be known by the person using the keyboard to enter the index number. Such a requirement necessitates another game component (e.g., a book) that correlates the indexes with the audio clips.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for playing a quiz game, such as an audio quiz game, that provide a xe2x80x9clevel playing fieldxe2x80x9d for players having a wide range of ages. Such an apparatus that further includes an audio playing device that provides automatic retrieval of an audio clip without requiring the user or players to know the exact address or index of the clip would be a further improvement over prior art audio quiz games.